The year of living biblically is a memoir of AJ’s attempt to live the Bible as literally as possible. It starts off quirky, warm and light when it comes to the Bible stuff. Like another another book by AJ Jacobs, Know it all, you get to know his sense of humor and mild neuroticism - plus he get’s all factoidal with Bible trivia. What’s not to like about an easy read like this?
One of my favorite anecdotes is AJ’s dealings with shatnez tester, Mr Berkowitz. A shatnez tester by the way, is an orthodox Jewish man who inspects clothing to make sure you aren’t breaking a bible commandment by wearing clothing made from mixed fibers.
AJ further meets with Christian creationists, the Amish, and Samaritans. It’s a fun, popcorn travel of Bible believing religions.
My only gripes is that for a man who tries to live as Bible literally for an entire year, he remains remarkable unaffected by the whole ordeal. On the volume knob of conversion, he ends up one and a half degrees past agnostic. Maybe this just reflect his tepid New York spirituality, but it’s kind of depressing that he just became a marginally better person. It just goes to show - AJ was out to make an entertaining book (which he did) and not true religious adventure. It’s like the slow moving teacup ride at Disneyland vs Space Mountain.
Again, not really a soul searching book, but an enjoyable read if you like the subject matter.
It’s been a while since Michael Jordan has been in the spotlight, and it’s easy to forget that he was the best basketball player of all time. The best. Jordan has become so iconic that it somehow doesn’t effect our minds with the weight of it all - we’ve been inundated with fakers and posers claiming the words “the best” as if it honestly applied to them. That’s what I loved about this book. At least for basketball, I know what “the best” means. It means Michael. Jeffrey. Jordan.
Driven From Within details MJ’s life and career in an unusual and interesting way. The book doesn’t read like a usual biography*. Written for the everyday man and not for the NBA statistician, I felt a genuine sense of fire and motivation inside myself when reading it. The book uses short blurbs and quotes from Michael and others close to him to flesh out the main themes in his life. When you finish the book’s 208 pages, it’s clear what MJ’s about and why he’s the best. You’ll know why he was an awesome clutch player, being able sink difficult shots under the most extreme pressure.
You might appropriately ask why, specifically, Jordan was the best. There are two reasons. First, he built his basketball game from the ground up by training harder, more constantly, more often, with more intelligence and more passion than anyone else. Second, that’s just who he was - who he was driven to be. Pushing to the brinks of his physical, emotional and psychological limits wasn’t something he had to fight himself to do. MJ gave a literal 100% at every practice, in every drill. When he played his heart out it, he was being authentic to who he was.
The book also shares a lot of information about Brand Jordan - the business entity of MJ which includes the Air Jordan shoes - and how commitment to core values has made them successful. Jordan has a strong sense of self, what he is and what he is not. With his business he tries to do the same thing, and so far, has been financially successful. Always pushing the envelope, but staying true to the core, I learned valuable lessons about the business concept of branding. Further more, if you read between the lines, there are volumes of teachings about inner game*.
Check out these two short videos below about Michael Jordan. I feel that they really express the essence of the book.
Minor’s lyrics from “Remember the name” played in the above video are an appropriate summation.
This is ten percent luck, twenty percent skill
Fifteen percent concentrated power of will
Five percent pleasure, fifty percent pain
And a hundred percent reason to remember the name
When I joked that he seemed obsessed with women, he said, “What would you rather consider besides sex and death?”
Whoa.
My mind has just been blown. I picked up a copy of Wild Nights: conversations with Mykonos about passionate love, extraordinary sex, and how to open to God, on a whim but quickly got engrossed and read it cover to cover the night it came in the mail. I’ve read several other of his books and enjoyed them, but none of them are as intense, crude, and brash in sharing his unique flavor of wisdom. After I finished I felt like I had just bitten into the fruit David shares instead of just listening intellectually about it. It was raw, sour, clear. Aside from being fascinated by it’s audacity, I genuinely liked the book for what it said.
A word of warning for those with more puritanical sensitivities - you probably shouldn’t buy a copy. Then again, if you’re feeling unfulfilled in being mild and conservative, this may just be the shock to your system that the doctor ordered. In any case, it’s definitely for a mature audience.
I admit it. I love the spy fantasy, and have watched a lot of James Bond. Let me tell you right now, however, your fantasy ideas about the of life a super-secret espionage man are just that - fantasies. Espionage is a serious business. It’s lonely, dangerous, and psychologically taxing. Dark, gritty, and jaded, spy work isn’t “fun”.
This book is the real deal. From my experience and the people I know in, or who have been involved in, the intelligence community, this book is far more illustrative than any movie or Tom Clancy novel. On the other hand, don’t expect that you’ll find 100% truth here either. If you are familiar with the clandestine world, even casually, you’ll notice how the author’s voices are very similar to those within the IC (Intelligence Community). They are a bit verbose and subtly conceal information. It’s not altogether transparent what the truth is. Unless you have some sense of spy intuition, you won’t catch the hints they artfully weave. They’ll leave out information and details that you wouldn’t know are important unless you knew the whole story. Don’t fret, though, the book is plenty meaty to satisfy us outsiders.
Let me just spit it out - I was disappointed in this book. It’s not that it’s a bad book - it’s a fine book. It has a modest 260 pages and an updated preface, which adds a nice touch. It just didn’t satisfy me in the way I’d hope it would. On the back of the cover, it touts “In this timeless and deeply learned classic, poet and translator Robert Bly offers nothing less than a new vision of what it is to be a man.” That, however, is a lie. For a new vision of men, try David Deida’s works instead.
Fundamentally, Bly is trying to take on the problems hurting men via myth. He touches on distant fathers no longer spending time with their sons, the lack of initiation rites* that were once prevalent to introduce boys into manhood, the loss of ownership of our own wildness and sexuality, and the void of instruction and masculine essence that we used to glean from older males. He even speaks against the ills that feminism brought.
Clearly, there are a lot of confused, weak, and over-compensating macho guys. Myth and story have the information we need, according to Bly, if we can decipher the truth encoded within them. We’ve lost our ability to think mythologically - hence the heavy analysis and interpretation of every detail that you will find the book.
The book does offers a plethora of stories, both from the author’s life and from mythology across the world. The story from which the book gains its title is one of the 236 Grimm’s Brothers tales. The fairy tale of Iron John, recorded in 1820 but perhaps thousands of years old, was chosen because of its focus on the dangers and triumphs of masculinity. Bly recites the story slowly - after each paragraph of Iron John there are dozen of pages of interpretation and musing. He dives into countless other myths and how they relate or highlight ideas about men.
Naked Buddhism: 39 ways to free your heart and awaken to now, is a nice read. I got interested in the author’s other works after reading the seminal Way of the Superior Man. Naked Buddhism is a great follow up, sharing some similar themes and general Deida flavor. I found that it helped flesh out some of the underlying beliefs from Way of the superior Man.
To clarify, the book itself isn’t really about the Buddhist religion - it’s about awareness and being, the “naked” essence of Buddhism. In this regard, I feel that it hits its mark. After I read it, I felt more open and well… just felt more being. Each chapter is a miniature meditation, distilled in just a few pages. It’s enough to cover the topic and satisfy you, but careful not to drown you in philosophy or doctrines. That’s one specific thing I like about the author - he’s a down to earth guy in real life. He’s not like many “gurus” who suffer from being over-enlightened.
Above: Desire Profiles: Raquel (Blue) vs Bart (Green)
The concept of this book is quite bold: What you know about human motivation is wrong. There are two very common theories explaining why humans do what they do. The first states that anything we do can be boiled down and seen as fulfilling the two biggest biological objectives: survival and replication. The second asserts that humans are essentially hedonists - we are always acting to either obtain pleasure or avoid pain. Both theories have their merits, but like the author, I believe they just doesn’t seem to fit.
Enter Who Am I? The 16 Basis Desires That Motivate Our Actions And Define Our Personalities
I heard about this book a while ago and liked the premise - that increased choices have caused less satisfaction. The book is well laid out, and my copy had 236 pages of reading, with 30 or so pages of notes in the back. The author, Barry Schwartz also gave a talk at TED about the same topic, and can be found here. It’s a nice 18 minute trailer to the text.
The author notes several times that when you have no choice, options are good. If you live under a tyrant who tells you what to eat, when to work, what to like - it sucks. More freedom in this case is a good thing. However, when you become as affluent as most Americans are, the excessive freedom of choice has turned out to be very detrimental - Fred Hirsh calls it “The tyranny of small decisions.”
I won’t argue his points with the studies and research like he does - I’ll merely present them. There are some so many fascinating things in the book that I can’t get to all of them. I’ll try to flesh out the chapters a bit so you can get the idea.
You might have already heard of this book, especially if you are familiar with David DeAngelo, the “Double your Dating” mogul. He mentions Way of the Superior man in a few of his products. Specifically, his Mastery Series has a lot of David Deida flavor to it. No matter, if you’re familiar, great, if not, you’re about to become so.
Wilde’s ‘Silent Power’ is a small book, and the version I bought could probably fit into my pants pockets and took a couple of sessions in the man’s library to finish. I originally read this book way back in 99 and gave it another look over a while back. It has a new age flavor, but don’t be put off - it has quite a few solid ideas applicable no matter what your belief system. The main thrust of the book is that you have an internal silent power that influences and communicates with others. With time, you can control and perceive your silent power.
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